Min Hee-jin, who was accused by HYBE, will hold a rebuttal press conference today
According to the audit result, HYBE confirmed specific facts and secured physical evidence proving ADOR’s plan to take over management rights under the leadership of CEO Min Hee-jin
Based on the data, HYBE plans to file a complaint against the people involved on charges of breach of trust.
On April 25th, HYBE stated, “One of the audit targets admitted that they submitted information assets containing the takeover plan and contact with outside investors as evidence during the investigation, as well as acknowledged the preparation of documents to attack HYBE for this purpose.”
HYBE continued, “According to the face-to-face investigation and transcripts in the submitted information assets, CEO Min Hee-jin instructed ADOR executives to come up with a way to pressure HYBE into selling the stake in ADOR the corporation is holding.”
HYBE added, “According to Min Hee-jin’s instructions, specific discussions were conducted on how to terminate the artists’ exclusive contracts before they end and how to invalidate the contract between ADOR CEO and HYBE.”
In addition, HYBE also released a screenshot of a group chat room conversation shared between three ADOR executives, including Min Hee-jin, on April 4th. In the chatroom, ADOR’s vice representative “A” said “There are other ways”, adding various ideas such as:
“– January 2nd, 2025, put option ?% exercise exit (operating profit of 2023: 33.5 billion/ 2024: ? billion, average pre-tax is ? billion cash out)
– ADOR becomes an empty shell/ proceeding with a lawsuit for infringement of rights against?
– Seeking financial investors (CEO Min + plan to buy ADOR from HYBE)
– Recommend HYBE to sell ADOR
– Sold at a reasonable price
– CEO Min acquires shares of ADOR with money from ADOR executives and cash out + ? new contract. In this case, the ?% left behind that we couldn’t sell in the past becomes useful again.”
In response, Min Hee-jin replied, “Awesome.”
Amidst this, NewJeans’ scheduled comeback appears to proceed as planned for now. NewJeans will release their new double single “How Sweet” on May 24th. The music video for the track “Bubble Gum” will be pre-released on April 27th at midnight. HYBE does not appear to be forcibly suspending NewJeans’ activities, as they are a main artist of the company.
HYBE stated, “We plan to provide the best support for the psychological and emotional care of NewJeans members and their successful comeback. We also plan to meet with the members’ legal representatives promptly to discuss measures to protect the members.”
HYBE CEO Park Ji-won said, “We deeply regret causing concern to fans, artists and employees in the process of advancing the multi-label system. We will do our best to heal the emotions and provide psychological stability for the precious assets of K-pop, the artists.”
On the other hand, Min Hee-jin announced plans to hold a rebuttal press conference in Seoul in the afternoon. Her legal representative said, “Min Hee-jin will clearly convey her position on the current situation.“
Source: Newsis
